Stellenbosch Reserve — Local services in Stellenbosch Local Municipality

……. We had bought a Hyperli Voucher for Gourmet-Food & Wine Pairing so the first thing to do was arrange an appointment to redeem it! Because they offer an email booking option we thought that we would give it a try but it proved a bit “nail-biting” as we didn’t receive a reply within the first week so we phoned a hooray someone did pick-up! So we learnt that they did have a problem of been short staffed and had just employed a new staff-member that very same day! Great! Now we had a secured reservation date! When you exit the main road and drive onto the estate which houses a few wine-farms you are already overcome with a good anxious adrenaline rush because of the sheer beaut-ii, the picturesque scene ahead of you overlooking the vine and the amazing mountainous views! It good to know that they have a security manned gate! The parking area is big and there are some nice trees to park your car under! The first impressions are always the lasting ones, the building housing the Wine-Tasting Room & the Longtable restaurant is very impressive, the front veranda is clean with a large wooden-bench and also the nice clean restrooms are situated here! The Reception area which houses a Bar together with some tables and along the one wall is an “L-shaped settee with tables to do wine-tasting at! They even have a Stove for Cold days! The Restaurant & the Wine-tasting facility is separated the Restaurant on the left! But the Best place to be seated is right out-side on the Patio which has big trees and large umbrellas for shade where the beaut-ii of the vineyards and the beautiful mountains in the distance is breath-taking-lii awesome! No wonder they have a picnic area which can be hire for any type of group function be it a wedding, party, etc, etc at the restaurant you can even arrange to have a picnic basket prepared beforehand! The picnic season is from November to March! Our voucher was for “Gourmet Food & Wine Pairing but sad-lii we were told that this is not going to happen as they have changed it to “Cheese-boards & 1 glass of Chardonnay” so what the heck we are here so we just accepted the change and bought a Haskell 4 wines tasting for R70.00 and a Dombeya 5 wines tasting for R50.00! The cheese-boards were scrumptious-lii sufficing with 4 slices of home-made white bread, 4 slices of rye-bread, 3 kinds of cheeses, marmalade, pickled cucumber & onion, cherry tomatoes and charcuterie fresh-lii prepared and delicious! You are unable to order foods from the restaurant to enjoy on the wine-tasting side you have to move over to indulge in the niceties there! So we just did that and had the most intriguing-lii insidious desserts! 1. Chocolate & Bacon= Dark chocolate Brownie with Bourbon ice cream and Bacon crumble! 2. Beetroot Crunchie=with white chocolate ice cream and caramelized sea-salt! There can be no truer words then as one of the Menu entries recorded “Good wine with Good food in Good Company is the most civilized pleasure one can enjoy!” Absolute-lii True! Our host was kind, pleasant and very knowledgeable with all the wine product from both ranges she served to us! The wines are produced from 60% of their own grapes plus 40% of grapes from Napier in the Franschhoek area! A Magical Romantic Real-Nature surrounding venue that has to be visited to experience Pure-Awesomeness!..........PS! They even have a Play Wooden Structure for the kids and Free...

We stopped by for lunch a few weeks ago, having booked in advance. Long Table is a small restaurant situated at Haskell Vineyard. The restaurant and the wine tasting are adjacent to each other in a semi open access layout. There are two reasons why I will not recommend this venue, nor will I return: Having arrived, and greeted with friendly smiles were shown to our seats. We are a party of 4, and two of us were keen to also do wine-tasting. The wine tasting counter was barely 6 meters from our table. While we were waiting to be served, I walked up to the wine tasting area to enquire if we could do wine tasting, and they advised me that it could only be done either outside or at the wine tasting area itself. As this area was just a few meters from our restaurant table I asked if we could walk our glasses up and down ourselves as we move through each tasting, and I was told that was in ok. This was where things went downhill. The waiters at our table told us this was not permitted; Eventually after asking a few more times the restaurant manager approached me and told me in no uncertain terms that I could not do wine tasting while seated at the restaurant table! I cannot imagine what wine farm would place such an absurd restriction. Her reasons that she provided were (i) They wanted me to enjoy the food and not be distracted by wine! What a ridiculous excuse as wine pairing is such common place around the world. (ii) As I was intending to use my Entertainer voucher towards the meals, that created a problem. Again – another absurd reason, which makes no sense. (I will not bother to comment about the tone and manner in which all of this was explained to me, but there was a little bit of a school-boy being berated for wanting to break the rules). The second reason that I would not return is the lengthy time periods. Here is how lunch turned out: Arrived at 13.45, Seated by 13.50, Ordered by 14.10, Wine issue not resolved by 14.15, and we are not offered the opportunity to buy other drinks; First course served by 14.30 (40 mins later), 15.18.. still waiting for second course (50 mins since first course!); 15.25 the next course arrived; 15.45 still waiting for dessert… I stopped making notes at this time. The waiting times between course is really no acceptable, and no explanations were offered. Finally a restaurant at a wine farm that does not permit you to wine taste at your table does not deserve to be on a wine farm – especially if you wait 40-50 minutes...

Don’t be fooled by these 2 stars. 1 is for them keeping my cake and flowers in a vase lol and the other is for them being lenient on a rule which I was never told about when making a booking that it’s a requirement to order 2 plates pp. We were about 10 in my table, we felt so lonely and neglected, we always had to raise hands for someone to come refill our glasses,that’s not enough, on our way out,we asked the waiter for our cake which we asked them to keep for us,they delayed getting us the cake because the waiter couldn’t get his figures correctly and shouted that our bill was short with R600 &something (imagine the embarrassment) we requested an invoice and turned out that the money short was less than R600, money short was paid. I don’t want to talk about them making us wait outside and pose for a photo and none of them came to assist even though we asked nicely until one of the guests offered to come and take a group photo of me and my guests.(I mean I know they don’t have to take photos but we asked nicely for a group photo as it was a birthday celebration) I can’t find the right words to describe how disorganised the waiter was and how much he cannot get his figures right yet using a calculator. On an overall, restaurant is nice and cosy, small plates with small portions of food, make sure to order 2 plates,nice music and nice view of the mountain if you’re sitting inside. Warm welcome from the guy at reception, he is nice...